Holiday & post-holiday doings

The usual lists of media I’ve absorbed and activities completed, plus all the dull personal doings that that don’t fit under the writing, publishing, or authoring headings.

Books

Lots of fluffy froufrou to balance out the Monstrous Tomes of Weber from last post.

The Perks Of Loving a Scoundrel Jennifer Mcquiston

Chasing Lady Amelia Mary Rodale

A Season Of Ruin Anna Bradley.

All 19th century British society romances. Great dialogue, fine characterization, and plots as simple and predictable as sunrise. Just what my brain needed.

And a delightful find: A NEW AUTHOR TO LOVE: Genevieve Cogman.

The Invisible Library

The Masked City

Alternate-worlds fantasy. The Library sits between variant worlds. Librarians seek out unique books, Dragons champion logic, Fae thrive on chaos & narratives…secrets lurk in every corner. The third book in the series comes out January 10 and I can’t wait.

Movies

I haven’t seen a new theater release in ages now. The group prefers a theater I physically cannot bear. (I tried. I did. Four separate occasions, four separate instances of back and leg pain requiring the Big Aleves for two+ days. No movie is worth that.) Plus I am not a fan of opening night dinner+movie eventing. I am not wholly hoopla-averse, but expensive/ loud/ large group dining plus a crowded theater is 1.5 crowds enough to wreck me. My wallet and my nerves prefer breakfast & a matinee if dining out before a movie at all.

So I’m not getting out, and if I don’t see a movie the first weekend, I usually end up waiting until it hits home viewing. That’s a longwinded lead-in to explain why I am seeing movies at home, mostly on DVDs from the library.

Let me move onward to this year’s holiday marathon:

Die Hard 1 & 2

Lethal Weapon

A Christmas Carol (B&W Alastair Sims 1951)

Bells of Saint Mary’s

We’re No Angels

It’s A Wonderful Life

Others:

Finding Dory

Spiderman 2 (the most recent incarnation)

Secret Life of Pets

Television

Sherlock. The only show worth noting from this time period. I re-watched the whole series around the weekend of New Year’s, and hosted an afternoon of foods+ (another)re-watching of season 3+the long, long long overdue season 4 premiere on New Year’s Day. I could say many things both complimentary and snarky about the new episode, but a) I’m sure others on the interwebz will do better analysis and b) I’m avoiding all critique until the season is done. Until then, I’m happy to sit back and see where the writers go with with the glorious, fascinating, eminently watchable mess they’ve made.

Kitchen Magic

So much baking. All the fun. brown sugar oat brittle. Christmas sugar cookies. Various breads. Chocolate-chip caramel cookies. Swedish butter cookies. The oatmeal cherry cookies were a hit with the Sherlock watchers, so I’ll be making & freezing more of that dough for sure. Maybe I’ll make scones for episode 2.

And soup. It’s soup season. Last week it was split pea with Christmas leftover turkey & bacon. I’ll do chili this weekend.

I’ve put my first book into the “finished in 2017” list. I’ll try to list books on Goodreads more diligently than I have in the past. No promises.

And if you want to read MY first novel, I dropped the sale price to 99 cents in Kindle format through January 8th.

Why? Why not? I can afford the occasional loss-leader, and I enjoy making it available. No, running a steep discount is not devaluing my work or books in general, nor is it “ruining the market for everyone else.” If having sales devalued merchandise then…no, no, not getting into economics & market theory today. That’s all the shares for this round. I’m done.